


Charm

by vix_spes



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-02
Updated: 2011-06-02
Packaged: 2018-04-11 12:23:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4435337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vix_spes/pseuds/vix_spes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It had never really sunk in to Sherlock just how charming John could be until he saw him in action...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Charm

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the following prompt at the shkinkmeme: While Watson may be enamoured with Holmes’ intellect, Holmes is continually impressed by Watson’s charm and social grace. He charms everyone. The Yarders, his patients, the Irregulars, the rough-tough guys in jail. Even their postman for heaven’s sakes! It makes Holmes feel like a freak for being so socially inept.

Sherlock had noticed it in a sense the first time that he met John at Bart’s and then after they had met at Baker Street, before John had even officially moved in. For two people who had only just met, John had been perfectly charming and affable, more so than Sherlock would have expected given the circumstances of their introduction.  He supposed it came with the territory; being good-natured was an incredibly useful trait for a doctor to have, even for one who had spent most of his medical career serving in the British Army. Having said that, John had been a surgeon; surely the majority of his patients were injured and thus in an inordinate amount of pain or under anaesthetic so the fact that their surgeon had a fantastic bedside manner was neither here nor there. He was perfectly nice to Sally Donovan and D.I. Lestrade the first time that they met, even though Donovan had treated him with disdain for accompanying Sherlock. He had even stayed that way when Sherlock had dragged him half-way across London. John may be continually impressed by Sherlock’s deductions but it was Sherlock himself who was frequently impressed by the charm and social grace that John possessed and displayed on a regular basis to all and sundry. While Sherlock treated pretty much everyone with disdain and regarded them as being beneath him with regards to mental acuity, John treated everyone the same regardless of who they were, something that Sherlock found fascinating.

~*~

Sherlock wasn’t supposed to be there seeing as he wasn’t actually injured or ill but then none of his experiments were at the stage where he could do anything with them and the flat was just boring. He knew all the answers to the quiz shows on TV and Lestrade was refusing to answer any of his texts. He wasn’t even going to deign to answer Mycroft’s phone calls and messages; the government had clumsily lost some more papers and that was just boring. John had left his job at the surgery after the incident with Moriarty primarily because he was going to be out of commission for several weeks when he finally got out of hospital and also because he had finally admitted what Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes had known all along; that he needed the adrenaline, needed the danger. He got the danger running around London after Sherlock and various members of the criminal population but adrenaline had most certainly been missing from his job as a locum GP. However, they did need a stable income, one that could only be provided by John. Mike Stamford had come up trumps again, finding John a position in the busy A & E department of Kings College hospital, assisting in surgery as and when he was needed. The uncertain nature of the department meant that John could get the hit of adrenaline that he needed while fulfilling his need to help people. It wasn’t quite a combat zone but it was a damn sight better than a GP’s surgery.

What amused Sherlock was how nearly three-quarters of the way through a double shift on a Saturday night, John still had that easy smile on his face. He had watched, fascinated, at the sheer variety of patients that John had dealt with over the period of time that he had sat there in the waiting room. The majority of them were the general ailments that you would expect on a Saturday night in London; people who had been in fights, others who were attempting to see how inebriated they could become before passing out and a few genuine emergencies. He had whiled away several hours deducing the quirks and foibles of those in the waiting room which had kept him amused for a while but his real source of entertainment had been watching John. He had even managed to sneak back into the treatment area when everyone on the staff had been distracted by an emergency that had been brought in. He had stood in the corner simply observing the way that John interacted with his patients. He was the epitome of charm with every single patient but what fascinated Sherlock were the minutiae; the way that John’s social skills were adapted with each new case and tailored to fit the patient.

There was the worried mother with a four year old boy who had inserted a piece of Lego up his left nostril, something that Sherlock simply couldn’t fathom; at the age of four he had been secretly experimenting with Mycroft’s chemistry set not doing something so mindlessly stupid. John had dealt with them simultaneously but in completely different ways; he had been reassuring and comforting to the mother and had joked with the little boy before giving him a firm warning about the dangers of what he’d done. Then there had been the two women in their early twenties, both of whom were rather drunk, but just one of them had required medical assistance; the brunette had fallen down some stairs into some railings, slicing her leg open. With them, John was strictly hands-off while still remaining pleasant, which was in direct contrast to the woman in her mid-sixties with whom there had been some good-natured banter and potentially some gentle flirting but Sherlock wasn’t completely certain. He’d even managed to placate the rather loutish drunken yob who was wearing some sort of football shirt (an East End team unless he was mistaken), incredibly drunk and literally dwarfing John in both height and girth. He was amazed that he had managed to go for so long unnoticed (the NHS staff obviously had appalling observational skills); it was only when John stopped to get himself a cup of tea that he noticed Sherlock ... and promptly exploded.

“Sherlock! What the hell are you doing here? No ... don’t tell me, you were bored. You can’t be here; I’m supposed to be working.”

“I’m not disturbing anybody.”

“It’s an A & E Sherlock. You can’t loom in the corner like a giant bat watching everybody. My shift finishes in a couple of hours and then I’ll be home, I’ll pick up some Chinese on my way back.”

“Dr. Watson! You’re needed in resusc.”

“Sherlock, I don’t have time for this. I’ll see you back at home.” It was the first sign of exasperation that John had displayed in all the time Sherlock was watching him.

~*~

The interactions that particularly fascinated Sherlock were the ones between John and the members of Scotland Yard, well certain members of Scotland Yard. After the initial shock (and he supposed annoyance) of Sherlock turning up at a crime scene dragging John with him, Lestrade had actually become good friends with John. They generally met once a week in a pub situated halfway between Baker Street and the Yard for several pints and who knew what else. That wasn’t to say that they didn’t have things in common; when he’d asked John he hadn’t been too impressed with his flatmate’s response, particularly as John had replied (with a mischievous look in his eyes) that they ‘both had experience in dealing with oversized toddlers with a penchant for tantrums’. They were both moral men who sometimes struggled with Sherlock’s way of dealing with things. They may have started out with simply a mutual respect for each other in common, but that had developed into a friendship with fairly strong foundations. John didn’t see his sister and he hadn’t kept in touch with any of his friends from the army so Sherlock supposed that Lestrade gave John a sense of normality he definitely didn’t get living with Sherlock (and being kidnapped by Mycroft on a semi-regular basis).

That was in direct contrast to the relationship that John had with two members of Scotland Yard in particular. While John’s good nature and general affability had helped his friendship with Lestrade along, in the case of Sally Donovan and Anderson it hadn’t made the slightest bit of difference. Regardless of much time John spent on crime-scenes helping Sherlock, helping Lestrade and the Yard, Sally still treated John as though he was a complete idiot for continuing to follow Sherlock around and Anderson followed suit, mindlessly doing and thinking exactly the same as his lover.

They were the only people that Sherlock had ever met who hadn’t succumbed to John’s charm and he simply couldn’t understand it. Mrs Hudson had approved of him at first sight (but then she liked Sherlock so maybe her opinion was slightly dubious), Lestrade liked him (and surely they should trust their bosses judgement) and, more importantly, Sherlock had liked him, been intrigued by him, from the beginning and Sherlock never liked _anybody_.

~*~

John studiously ignored the bleeping of his phone on the bedside table and simply rolled over and buried his head under the pillow. It was 5.30am and he’d only got back from the hospital two hours ago. A major incident had come in just as he was about to leave and the surgeon that they needed was on holiday so John had stepped into the breach. It had been four hours of painstaking surgery and just as he was about to strip out of his surgical scrubs another of those caught up in the accident had crashed; internal bleeding that had been missed by an incompetent doctor (John was convinced he was having an affair with the ward sister which was bad as it meant Sherlock was rubbing off on him). That had been another two and a half hours in theatre but he had been lucky; the other surgeon had lost one of the other victims while the fourth was still in a critical condition. All he wanted to do was collapse into bed and sleep for as long as possible but of course that was going to be physically impossible with Sherlock Holmes as his flatmate.

His phone stopped bleeping and he deemed it safe to poke his head out of the covers and try to determine what was going on. That was a very bad idea. The instant that he did so, he heard footsteps outside his door before it slammed open to reveal Sherlock, already wearing his coat and scarf. Whatever excuse he came up with, Sherlock had a response so that it was a very reluctant and incredibly sleep-deprived doctor who dragged himself out of the warmth of his bed to get dressed despite not knowing where he was going or why he was needed.

He certainly wasn’t prepared, upon walking out of the door onto Baker Street, to see the familiar black car with the door open and waiting for him. When he got in, he found it already almost fully occupied by Mycroft, Anthea and her ever-present Blackberry, D.I Lestrade and, of course, Sherlock.

“Will one of you please tell me what the hell is going on and why I’ve been dragged out of bed at this un-godly hour?”

It was Mycroft who spoke. “There’s been a spate of deaths amongst a group of ex-servicemen that Scotland Yard is trying to resolve. However, they won’t talk to the police which is why you’ve been dragged from your bed; there was a fourth murder last night. I have ensured that your military security clearance has remained valid and we are hoping that you will be able to succeed where others ... have not.”

Well, John couldn’t really complain about it when the facts were laid out like that.

“We’ve tried everything but they won’t talk to us. They just close ranks and clam up.”

“And what do you expect me to do?”

“Just be yourself,” was Lestrade’s answer as they pulled up at their destination. “There’s also the fact that you’re a military man yourself.”

“The things I do for you lot.”

John rolled his eyes and wandered over towards the group and introduced himself. All three of them (Anthea’s eyes didn’t move from her Blackberry) watched in amazement as John set to work and within minutes had been accepted by the group of ex-servicemen, setting them completely at ease. An hour later he returned with the information that Lestrade and Sherlock needed and looking rather pleased with himself.

“Is there anybody that you can’t charm?”

Lestrade had that grin on his face that said he was teasing but he couldn’t hide the fact that he was impressed. Mycroft’s face was implacable as always, who knew what he was thinking, but it was Sherlock’s face that showed the most vivid expressions. He was looking at John in wide-eyed amazement, almost as though he could kiss him.

“John, how did you do that?”

John just shrugged his shoulders, blushing slightly as he replied, ever modest, “I suppose I just knew what to say to them.”

~*~

There was something intriguing about the subtle differences between John and Mycroft. There were the obvious differences between them, notably in the amount of power that Mycroft held (like hell did he occupy a ‘minor role in the British government’) and the fact that his intelligence was pretty much equal to that of Sherlock’s, although John was by no means lacking in intelligence, it was the subtle differences in the qualities that they both possessed that fascinated Sherlock.

Both of them had charm and social grace but the way that they used it was completely different. Mycroft’s charm was used for halting international crises, manipulating people into doing exactly what he wanted and placating foreign dignitaries. His social graces were perfectly employed in enacting the required etiquette at state banquets, formal dinners and any other number of social situations that he was required to attend. His charm and social grace wasn’t naturally a part of him, at heart Mycroft was as scathing of other people as Sherlock, he was merely better at hiding his disdain and had cultivated his charm in order to add to the power that he wielded. He wasn’t like John, whose charm was simply part and parcel of Dr. John H. Watson and just one of the many things that Sherlock liked about him. What was more, he knew that in a way John fascinated Mycroft as well, though in a completely different way to that in which he fascinated Sherlock.

~*~

Sherlock had been sulking on the couch all day, only deigning to move at the very last minute when it would definitely make them late. He was thoroughly disgusted by the fact that they had been summoned to attend a dinner and reception hosted by the indomitable Mummy Holmes and held at Mycroft’s grace and favour London home. Mycroft had delivered the invitation (addressed to both Sherlock and John) personally and, were it not for the handwritten note from ‘Mummy’ that had been included Sherlock would have declined just to annoy Mycroft. As it was, he’d been thoroughly petulant and refused to talk to Mycroft for the duration of his visit, the two of them sitting in silence until John returned from his shift at the hospital. John hadn’t made a single comment on their behaviour (he’d given up on them actually liking each other as a lost hope by this point), simply picked up the invitation and commented that it would be nice to finally meet the Holmes matriarch before going to make tea. When Mycroft had come to leave, after numerous pointed comments from Sherlock about Mycroft’s diet and that surely he had better things to be doing than sitting round drinking tea, he had absentmindedly reminded them that it was a black-tie event and they would both be expected to dress appropriately.

Sherlock had grumbled and sulked around the flat but had dug his tails out of his wardrobe, leaving them out for John to take to the drycleaner’s on his way to work. John had done so, but only because he had to take his own things as well. He didn’t have a set of tails but that wasn’t a problem as he intended to wear his military dress uniform. Sherlock had been rather surprised when John appeared in the living room in his military dress uniform; it was so different from the way that he normally dressed in his woolly jumpers, checked shirts and comfortable, faded jeans. Now he was in the navy blue, cherry red and old gold of the RAMC. He had known from the start that John was a military man, he had pointed it all out when he first met John, and it was always hinted at under the surface; that ability to intimidate people while barely altering anything but the tone of his voice, his military bearing and numerous other little quirks. It was one thing to recognise all of those things but it was another thing entirely to see John in his military uniform. He noted that John was shifting uncomfortably under his scrutiny and decided to oblige John, pulling on his coat and walking out the flat towards the car that Mycroft had sent for them.

John’s jaw dropped and Sherlock simply rolled his eyes at the ostentation on display as they pulled up at Mycroft’s home and entered, mingling in with the rest of the guests as Sherlock wanted to avoid Mycroft for as long as possible. Although, trying to remain unobtrusive was rather impossible given the way that they were dressed. Well, Sherlock drew the attention of everybody wherever he went, but even more so in the impeccably tailored set of tails that had no doubt cost more than John wanted to even think about. While John had a tendency to go unnoticed when he was next to Sherlock, tonight that wasn’t the case as he drew almost as many admiring glances looking as he did in his mess uniform. The uniform had obviously been made for him before he went out to Afghanistan but it still fitted perfectly. Beyond that, there was obviously something about navy trousers with their single red stripe, white shirt with black bow tie, waistcoat and navy jacket with red lapels and cuffs when worn by a blond of average height. John wasn’t completely comfortable with the scrutiny, he was much happier hiding in the background, and didn’t complain for once as Sherlock manoeuvred him out of the centre of attention with a hand in the small of his back.

Sherlock staked out a corner of the room where he was hopeful that he would be able to hide from Mycroft for a while longer while keeping up a running commentary to John about the guests that had been invited both by Mummy and by Mycroft. He couldn’t help but feel gratified that John found his comments amusing and hadn’t lost the habit of proclaiming his amazement at Sherlock’s deductions out loud, even after living with Sherlock for what was now a considerable period of time.  He swiped two glasses of champagne off the tray of a passing waiter, despite his dislike of the way that alcohol deadened the speed at which his mind worked, but he could foresee that they were going to be here for a while at least and John had banned him from using cocaine (something that he hadn’t found as infuriating as he had thought) and here he had no access to either a gun or his skull. John was a more than adequate replacement however. To his relief, it wasn’t much later that he saw Mummy heading towards them, exuding understated elegance as always. He made the necessary introductions and then stood back and watched with a smug smile as John proceeded to win over his mother.

He knew that he really shouldn’t be surprised. He’d watched John charm the Yarders, patients from all walks of life and any number of soldiers. He’d charmed Mycroft, well, to the extent that Mycroft could be charmed and Sherlock wasn’t quite sure how he felt about the fact that Mycroft actually liked and approved of Sherlock’s flatmate. He was torn between a very childish delight that he’d pleased his older brother and disgust that Mycroft actually agreed with him about something (and it was definitely Mycroft agreeing with Sherlock and not the other way around). He frowned as he saw Mummy take John’s arm, questioning him on whether he was ranked as a Captain or higher, as she led him off to show him off to her friends. This was one annoying side-effect of John’s almost irresistible charm; he actually had to be in company of idiots for much longer than he would like while John socialised. No doubt Mycroft would inform him that he could always leave John here but there was no chance that that was going to happen. He came to this bloody thing with John and he’d be leaving with him.

~*~

Most of the time Sherlock didn’t have a problem with John’s natural charm and ease with social graces. In fact, most of the time it was incredibly useful when they had to deal with people, with relatives of the deceased etc., and not all the information could be derived from crime scenes or corpses in various situations. Until he’d met John, Sherlock had never been bothered about his social ineptitudes or the fact that most people regarded him as a freak. Whatever comments that had been directed towards him, tended to wash over straight over him with barely any recognition. And then he had met Dr. John H. Watson.

Ninety-five percent of the time, he functioned as he always had (and regardless of how adamant Anderson and Donovan were, he _wasn’t_ a psychopath); he treated everyone with disdain, complained about their ignorance or their stupidity (generally one went hand in hand with the other), stubbornly existing on tea and nicotine patches (until John forced food into him and confiscated the nicotine patches) and generally swanning around London not giving a damn about how he spoke to people, how he treated people and subsequently what they thought of him. As long as he could do what he wanted then he didn’t particularly care. Prior to meeting John he wouldn’t care at all but he _had_ met John and now there was that little part of him that wondered if everybody was right. Maybe there was something abnormal about him. Maybe he was a freak like Sally was so fond of saying.

It was this that Sherlock simply couldn’t understand and he didn’t know how to collect all of the necessary data so that he _could_ understand it. John was the first person in a very long time, possibly the first person ever, who had accepted Sherlock just as he was with no outright criticism just the odd subtle nudge about his behaviour and grumbled about the body parts in the fridge and experiments in the kitchen but he didn’t treat Sherlock like he was a freak. It was precisely for that reason that it unnerved Sherlock that one of the only people, if not the only person, who didn’t treat him like a freak could make him feel like one.

**Author's Note:**

> If you would prefer to comment on LJ, you can do so [here](http://vix-spes.livejournal.com/55609.html)


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